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Detainee protests 'the goverment's fault'

The length of time it takes the federal government to process asylum seeker claims is leading to detention centre protests, the opposition says.

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Source: AAP


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Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said on Wednesday that more and more protests at facilities such as

Villawood, in Sydney's west, would happen if Labor couldn't stem the flow of boats and speed up refugee processing.

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"The government is responsible ultimately for the rolling crisis, I think you could say, we now have in our detention

centres," he told reporters in Canberra.

"Their decision to make the appeals process more extensive and longer with an panel-based approach is contributing to the issue here."

Mr Morrison said detainees became more stressed in the centres the longer they stayed there and suggested the protests had become an inevitability.

"When you have that many people arrive people by boat and when you have this many people in detention there is just a natural flow of outcomes which will occur," he said.

However, Mr Morrison struggled to explain why similarly distressing protests to those at Villawood occurred in Australian detention centres under the last coalition government.

"When people are in detention and there for a long period of time and they don't get the outcome they want, they will take matters on occasions into their own hands," he said.


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